This week I was able to work three days and packed lunches and drinks all three days. I've had five no spend days this week, which helps me to meet some of my goals.
Cloth napkins are always included with my packed lunch from home. In fact this month marks one year that I've been paper towel free in our home. I've not bought any paper towels since April 2018.
At that time we switched to cloth only and it has saved me a lot of money. By my calculations I've saved close to $200 in the last year by not buying paper towels.
Last week eBay had a $3.00 off coupon available, so I checked my Amazon wishlist to see if a book I'd been wanting was available on eBay.
I found this Thrifty cookbook for $3.99 with free shipping, so I ended up paying 99¢ for a book I'd been wanting, and I used a $1.00 eBay card I earned from the Checkpoints app.
Tuesday evening Bailey and I had a movie night. We made pizza at home and watched the Ruth Bader Ginsburg film, "On The Basis of Sex".
We thought it was a good film, which tells the story of how Ruth Bader Ginsburg brought a case before the U.S. Court of Appeals to overturn a century of gender discrimination.
Here is a trailer of the film if you're interested:
This week I was able to pick up some free toilet paper. It was several rolls that were taken off early to put on a new roll. The custodial staff sets them aside rather than throw them away, so I picked up a few to take home with me.
My daughter had her oil changed this week and only paid $20 for the supplies. Her uncle uses synthetic oil at his shop, which is what her car requires.
This week I made a call to Verizon, my cell phone carrier to see if I could get a block on International calls. I've been getting robocalls from France and the Congo and want them to stop.
Last month I accidently hit the redial button on one of them and was charged $6.00 for my mistake. It was my fault, so I paid the fee, but when I was speaking the the Verizon representative he decided to reverse the charge, so now I have a $6.00 credit on my account.
It pays to ask sometimes if a company will waive a fee for you. You never know if you will save yourself some money if you don't ask. Even though I didn't ask in this case, I have asked in the past and had a fee or two reversed before.
If you're interested in stories from the Great Depression you can look on YouTube for several good films about this topic.
One film I watched this week is from the U.S. National Archives, which I really enjoyed. It gives you information about a time when the economy was really bad and can give you ideas on ways to cope if that were to happen again today.
The comment section is good to read as well because people are thinking this kind of collapse could happen again.
I've been reading about food prices increasing due to all the rain and flooding we've had this year.
On Thursday we picked up some groceries from Walmart. Ingredients we picked up include salt, bread, and American cheese. We also picked up a bottle of chili powder on mark down.
We received a check from a class action lawsuit this week for Premiere Protein Shakes, which we bought in 2016. The check was for $17 and some change and was included in a payment I made this week.
That's all the news from here this week. How was your week? Any frugal wins for you? We'd love to read about it in the comment section.
I worked two days this week and brought lunch & drinks both days.
My daughter is doing so well with her reselling that she has asked me to join her. So, on Saturday I started helping her because business has been doing so well.
On Ebay I listed several more items for sale over the weekend. One of them sold on Thursday for $19.99.
We were able to get in on an Angel Soft toilet paper deal at Dollar General this week. We used a $5 off $25 deal, plus a $5 off $15 Angel Soft deal, and $1.00 off coupons for each package. We bought 5 packages of 12 rolls each and paid 91¢ for each 12 pack, which was a 92% savings.
I downloaded several free health videos and sewing tutorials to my computer to watch at a later time.
On Thursday I had the day off, so we took the opportunity to drop off my daughter's car at her uncle's auto shop to get the oil changed. He also rotated her tires for her and only charged her $20 for supplies.
While we were waiting on her car we went to the thrift store and picked out several items to resell.
On Friday night I made a large taco salad for dinner on Friday and Saturday. I like making enough of one dish to have for the next day too.
I woke up bright and early today thinking that I would NOT be working today, but then I received a call to sub around 6:30 this morning. I have never worked the first day back to school, but one of the teachers woke up sick this morning and needed a sub, so she called me. Last year I worked on the second day of school, but never on the first day until today. I am so, so glad that I made lunches yesterday and went ahead yesterday and made today's dinner, which was Chili Mac. Turns out my daughter was sick at school today and I ended up making her a doctor's appointment after school. She is now on antibiotics. We didn't get home until after 5 o'clock and it was so nice that all I had to do when I came home was to heat up dinner and serve it along with a salad, which was also already made. Planning ahead made my day run a whole lot smoother. Today was a good day for me sub-wise as my phone stayed busy with requests. I even had to turn down a couple of days as I was already booked. I am very grateful for each and every request.
In years past I always bought a calendar/planner to write down the days I am subbing, but I haven't done that for this school year and my calendar from last school year ran out in July. There are some beautiful planners out there that I would love to have, but they also cost money. I paid $7.00 for one I used last year and it was a plain, no frills one, but I've seen them cost a lot more than that! The Erin Condren planners are beautiful, and I would love to have one, but I cannot pay over $50 for a planner. One of our local banks gives really nice calendars to all the teachers, but unfortunately that does not trickle down to the substitutes. My daughter made me a calendar for August, but I already need at least the rest of 2015, so this year I am just going to print them off the Internet for free instead of paying $7 or more for a planner. I actually found one that was advertised as a printable ink saver calendar. The school where I subbed today gave me a folder of important papers and I can keep my new calendar in the inside pocket. I've just reached the point in my life where I am tired of some things costing so much money. I said at the beginning of the year that one of my goals in 2015 was to avoid consumerism, and this is one of those times. I think times are tough right now, and I have read and seen things financially that concern me greatly. For now, I am going into gazelle mode when it comes to spending any money. So, for right now I am counting my blessings and grateful that I was able to work today. :)
